This picture demonstrates how a single word on a page can mean little without the other words around it.
Have you ever thought how strange it is to be able to understand a written language? Our eyes skim the symbols on the page and our mind turns them into sounds and syllables in our heads that form words. These words strung together then create pictures and concepts in our minds. And these words have the powerful ability to tell us a story, allow us to express ourselves, and let us communicate across various different mediums.
One way that we can analyze how these words form our language and communication is through corpus linguistics. As mentioned in the previous post, corpus linguistics is used to analyze text. It allows us to break down the language to see how specific words are used and in what format, setting, etc. Svenja Adolphs, a professor of the English language and linguistics at the University of Nottingham, discusses the impact of corpus linguistics on analyzing literary texts in her book Introducing Electronic Text Analysis. She suggests that the abilities of corpus linguistics allow us to better interpret texts, as they give us an in depth breakdown of the words used within the writing. She states, “There is now a considerable body of research in the area of stylistics that illustrates how the analysis of literary texts using linguistics frameworks can both generate new insights, and provide evidence for established interpretations” (Adolphs 64). One can use corpus linguistics to study the frequency of words used by the author, as relating to theme, language use, or dialogue, and it can also give us insight to the characters, plot, and narration.
This frequency list demonstrates how many times the word “face” is used in Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility. Source: pitt.edu
Corpus linguistics can give the reader information about the literary texts through the techniques of frequency lists of words and phrases, type-token ratios, keyword analyzes, and more (Adolphs 66). The image to the right is an example of a frequency list. This frequency list pertains to the various times the word “face” surfaces in Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility. A list like this can help the reader analyze how many times the word is used in a literary work, which then helps them understand more about the author’s use of language to build his or her storyline.
The reader can also interpret the context in which the word is used by analyzing the words around it. For instance, if one were to look up a word connected to a certain theme or motif, the reader could then gather a greater understanding of how the author uses these words to create his or her story. This also concerns characters as well. As Adolph suggests, “A simple concordance search can often provide us with a general idea of how a character is presented in a story, or what recurrent actions or features are associated with a particular character” (67). A simple search like this that collects all the times a word or phrase is used can be extremely helpful in analyzing literary work. And this is just one of the many tools that corpus linguistics has to offer.
As an English major, I can understand how important this tool can be when analyzing literary works. While reading the words of a text, they all seem to flow together in order to create a story in your mind. The emotions, concepts, and complexity of a story usually overpower a person’s ability to fully analyze the words written. It’s rare that a reader gets to go back and examine what words the author actually chose to describe a character or what phrases the author chose to describe a certain motif. The access to corpus linguistics has been a large step in the process of analyzing literary texts, and the technology enables readers to investigate the use of words and phrases in our language. So whether one is interpreting Shakespeare’s many plays, the Bible, or even J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, the ability to fully analyze the language of these authors is available through corpus linguistics.
I like the parts of the reading that you highlighted. I think you selected the parts which teach us the most about the use of a corpus. It’s important that the class learns these uses for corpora so that we are more interested in our individual corpora which we are meeting with Bjork for for next week. I’m very excited to see the different word frequencies in different genre’s of online websites.
I really enjoyed how you connected literary study to corpus linguistics. Your point about how this type of analysis reveals complexities within literary works made me think how I, as an English major, can utilize these tools. Older works, such as Shakespeare, have been critically examined over several centuries. Despite that, corpus linguistics provide even more insights into the text. Although I was initially skeptical how electronic text analysis could apply to my studies, I see how it can be a valuable tool in further understanding literary works.
Ana,
I found it very interesting how our ideas contrasted. I read your intro ad thought that our blogs would be similar because you discussed finding meaning in literature and word. But then I realized you simply discussed constructing literature. I understood svenja Adolph’s explanation of analysis text. However, I was not able to see how it suggested that literature could be better understood through text analysis. I appreciated your blog for highlighting a different view, but disagree in the fact that textual analysis can construct meaning, entire meaning, at least, on a literary work. The meaning comes from soul and experience.